When it comes to the battle flag and racism, Texans shouldn’t look away

Here in Tarrant County, where a Methodist minister critical of slavery was lynched in 1860 and where a white mob blocked African-American students from school in a 1956 incident like Little Rock’s, we have no room to judge another state for its legacy of racism and resistance.

The Confederate battle flag is carried and cheered alongside the less confrontational national flag each January in the Stock Show parade. The “Rebel flag” is flown openly at businesses and events, not only in Fort Worth but also in nearby Rebel-friendly towns.

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In nearby Glen Rose, a former candidate for mayor wrote the Reporter last year defending “conservative white voters” and saying “equality and diversity are the way to … defeat.”

Yes. The newspaper printed it.

In East Texas, reporters and civic leaders are just now concerned to learn that a neighbor is virulent segregationist Earl P. Holt III, leader of the Missouri-based Council of Conservative Citizens group cited in Charleston suspect Dylann Roof’s papers.

About Bud Kennedy

Bud Kennedy is a homegrown Fort Worth guy who started out covering high school football here when he was 16. He went away to the Fort Worth Press and newspapers in Austin and Dallas, then came home in 1981.

Since 1987, he's written more than 1,000 weekly dining columns and more than 3,000 news and politics columns. If you don't like what he says about politics, read him on barbecue.